DIVINE » l. valdez

xxx

❝i'm not leaving your side 'til we're back home ❞

Normally around her friends, Hina felt safe but knowing what she had to tell them she felt trapped. 

"There's more, I didn't realize until now, but I think I know a way to keep you both alive," Hina chimed in, tightening her grip on Leo's arm to steady her shaking body. 

Speaking the words aloud made Hina's blood run cold. How could she tell her friends she held their lives in her hands? Even worse, how could she choose how lives and who dies?

It was a cruel trick of the Fates, the ultimate punishment against Hina for existing.

Hina explained how the Fates had appeared in her dreams twice and how Lachesis had found her in Bologna. 

Jason's expression turned to stone, making it impossible to read his face.

She continued, her voice wavering as she repeated the words the Fates had told her. 

"I'm not sure yet, but I think I'm supposed to die for one of you, so you can both survive. I don't know how, but I know it's true. I have to face the Fates."

The sentence hung in the air, the icy rain assaulting Hina as she watched her friends' grim expressions.

Leo was the first to speak, his words desperate, "You can't, Ina. We can find a way around this. There's got to be something we can do. Right, Jason?"

The son of Jupiter didn't look so confident. 

"We can't be certain this is what the Fates meant until we get to Epirus, but we can't split up at the House of Hades. Hina you can't go in there alone."

Hina understood Jason's words: she didn't stand a chance. She wasn't a fighter, Hina Ito ran from danger. 

"I don't have a choice, Jason. I have no clue what is waiting for me there but I can't avoid it. I've been running for sixteen years, I have to make my stand. My whole life was designed to crash and burn so brightly that even Apollo couldn't ignore what he's done," Hina protested, her eyes watering as she finally voiced the fears that had been growing in her. 

Leo slid the Archimedes sphere into his tool belt and pulled Hina into his chest. The warmth from his body washed over Hina's rain drenched torso.

"Are you sure?" Piper finally asked the question everyone was thinking. 

Her voice was muffled through Leo's shirt but Hina refused to face her friends. "I have to be."

Jason was with Hina from the beginning, they were 'Lost and Confused Team' and Leo was the one who Hina kept waking up for everyday. He made her life feel normal and he made her forget the prophecies and curses that plagued her mind. 

She would do anything for them.

They fell silent, only the sound of Hina's sobs heard. Jason rested a hand on her shoulder in comfort.

"Leo, sound the alarm," Piper demanded.

Hina realized Piper was using charmspeak as Leo dropped his grip around Hina and turned to the control panel. He frowned when nothing happened.